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Absorptive Capacity and Technology Knowledge: Enhancing Relational Capital
Author(s) -
Vieira Carlos Lopez Cano,
BrionesPeñalver AntonioJuan,
CegarraNavarro JuanGabriel
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
knowledge and process management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.341
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1099-1441
pISSN - 1092-4604
DOI - 10.1002/kpm.1494
Subject(s) - relational capital , absorptive capacity , leverage (statistics) , knowledge management , portuguese , business , profit (economics) , relational model , industrial organization , competitive advantage , relational database , marketing , economics , microeconomics , intellectual capital , computer science , artificial intelligence , data mining , linguistics , philosophy
The purposes of this study are to examine the relationship between absorptive capacity and relational capital and to identify a potential stock of technology knowledge (T‐knowledge) that can act as a catalyst for these relationships. We also examine the relative importance and significance of ‘intentional unlearning’ as a bridge between ‘relational capital’ and ‘T‐knowledge’ and the existence and enhancement of relational capital. These relationships are examined through an empirical investigation of 125 Portuguese companies. Portugal is facing an extremely difficult economic situation and thousands of jobs have been lost. As a result, the ability for organisations to create, transfer, assemble, integrate and use relational capital as leverage is fundamental to achieving a competitive advantage or, indeed, survival. Associação Empresarial da Região do Algarve (NERA) is a non‐profit organisation of an inter‐sectoral nature associated with the Portuguese Industrial Association representing the Algarve. Analysis of the data indicates that if the organisation considers the establishment of a stock of T‐knowledge as a prior step to the enhancement of unlearning, then unlearning has a positive influence on the conditions that stimulate the enhancement of relational capital. Our main conclusion is that creation of relational capital by NERA members will depend to a significant extent on how managers acquire, analyse, interpret, and understand new external knowledge. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.